About Me

Originally a geologist by training, I now work as a museum professional. My passion is old photographs, the photographers who took them, the equipment and technologies they used, the people and scenes in the photos, and the stories behind them.

Friday, 16 August 2013

Sepia Saturday 190: Come into the Garden Maud

The difficulty with providing an image for use as a Sepia Saturday prompt, particularly one that you've used previously, is that it's a little trickier to produce an interesting follow on article. Hence I'm going off on a somewhat different tack this week. Feel free to play the embedded sound track while you're reading, and it will hopefully provide an appropriate background to the photos.

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

Maud; A Monodrama
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

When Alfred - for surely that must be his name - charmed Maud with those silken words, it seems unlikely that he envisaged such an outcome: tea with Maud, but also a very alert baby, and a photographer in attendance to record the event. He is not amused!

The Miller house, shop and post office, c.1905-1910
Image republished from old postcard by unknown publisher

It wasn't just the faintly ridiculous pose which attracted me to the cabinet card, purchased on eBay, but also the tent. It is similar to one just visible in this image of the Weston Underwood garden of my great-great-grandparents John and Eliza Miller. When I last used this image, in the story of John's father James Miller, drainage man, I suggested that the tent might have been "used as a children's playhouse." Perhaps they were a common appearance in late Victorian and Edwardian gardens, and primarily protected tea drinkers from the harsh summer sun?

For more picnics and garden gatherings, please pay a visit to the 190th edition of Sepia Saturday.

I can remember having a similar tent which we took to the beach when I was a child. The erection of the tent in the wind was always a great source of frustration for my mother (father never went to the beach) and of great amusement for we children. Thanks for the memory jogger, Brett.

A fun photo. Baby looks to be at the height of cuteness. I would think a tent might be intended as a sun screen for mother and infant, rather than for children or tea services. Between hats and parasols, women of this era seemed very sensitive (and wisely too as we know now) to sun exposure.

I definitely see what you mean about the man's irritated stance. It adds a comic touch to the photo which I'm sure was not the intended reaction. The tent actually reminds me of those found on beaches of the era used for changing into bathing attire. Apparently they were multi-purpose!

I have to say, the embedded soundtrack was indeed the definitive touch!! Absolutely perfect choice. Bravo!

I'm with Mike on the tent: those Victorians didn't like sun, for sure -- getting browned in the sun meant "working class," and that simply wouldn't do! Do you suppose it also helped with pests like mosquitoes?

How observant and I bet you are correct. Women really did NOT let the sun touch there skin... by grandmother was always worried about the way we ran around in the sun and she always sought a shaded spot. I think tents like that are a great idea for today!

When we were young my parents were always very strict and going out in the sun without some sort of protection, and I've tried the same with my own kids. Living in the sub-tropics one has to be very careful

Oh to imagine how the people from these photos would react to the music and "poetry" of today. They may have been thinking the "thoughts," but they weren't saying the words. What will it be in another hundred years? Thinking of some of what I've seen people post on Facebook I think there are going to be a lot of completely humiliated great-great grandchildren.

That's odd!! You all seem to agree that these are flimsy and the least little breeze would flatten it down. But I see 6 ropes and presume there are 2 more behind, to anchor it to the ground. I would think this would be more resilient.